Big brains payrolled by Big Tobacco

By Jim Giles

IT IS well known that when the dangers of smoking became increasingly obvious in the 1950s, tobacco companies funded scientific research aimed at downplaying the risks. Now, a little-known strand of that campaign, aimed at giving an intellectual gloss to pro-smoking arguments, has been detailed for the first time.

In an attempt to win hearts and minds, the tobacco companies bankrolled a network of economists, philosophers and sociologists. Documents newly scrutinised by academics reveal that members of the network generated extensive media coverage and numerous academic articles – with almost no mention that the work had been paid for by cigarette manufacturers.

The network generated extensive media coverage – with almost no mention that the work had been paid for by cigarette firms

“The industry realised it had to affect public opinion,” says Anne Landman, an independent tobacco policy expert based in Colorado, who carried out the research with colleagues at the University of California at San Francisco.

Landman and her colleagues found details of the scheme in the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library, a collection of 8 million industry documents made public and assembled during court cases against tobacco companies. Although some individuals in the network have already been been linked to the tobacco industry, including the psychologist Hans Eysenck and the philosopher Roger Scruton, the UCSF study is the first to catalogue the full scale of the effort (Social Science & Medicine, DOI&colon; 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.11.007).

The network originated in the 1970s, when the social impacts of smoking, such as fire risks and medical costs, were increasingly being discussed. The documents show that seven international cigarette firms, including industry giants Philip Morris, British ...

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